“Following” on Twitter is an interesting concept. Everyone does it differently. Following means that you subscribe to someone’s updates. When they post something, you’ll see it on twitter or on your IM or your phone or whatever you’ve got set up. There are debates on how many people it makes sense to follow and whether it’s better to follow or be followed. There are different following strategies from @scobleizer’s custom written follow back script and @sol’s “flow” on one side and on the other, people with tons of followers who follow very few in return like @techcrunch. Shel Israel has even posted a “follow policy“.
Last night, I remarked how amazed I was at how people find and follow me. I’ll get followers who I’ve never heard of who are following eight people (including me) and I have no idea who the other seven are. I also get followed by some people who follow 14,357 other people and I know only about 435 of them. So @TeachaKidd asked me: “How do you decide who to follow?”
I get the email notices sent to me when someone new starts to follow me. When I get the notice, I ALWAYS click through. I figure that if you’ve taken the time to follow me, the least I can do is give you a click. From there, I’d say that I follow liberally, but judiciously.
Here are the things that will make me follow you:
- I know you. Like as in you’re my mom. Or a friend. Or someone who I invited to join. The most sure fire way to get a follow back from me is to be someone I know personally.
- You’re someone I’ve heard of. There are a lot of people I follow who are influential interesting people. I don’t know @scobleizer or @jowyang or @chrisbrogan, but they’re interesting people, so I follow just to stay in the loop.
- You’re interesting. Or even just not boring. It doesn’t take a lot to impress me. You’ve posted a few times and had some interesting things to say beyond, “I’m having lunch.” You don’t even need to be very interesting, just interesting. And I’ll usually follow you back.
- You @ people. I believe that the tools being developed in social media today are conversational tools, not publishing tools. If you’re participating in conversations, I’m pretty likely to want to hear what you’re talking about. There are some notable exceptions, like @hotdogsladies…who is just funny. Even @tweetjeebus talks to people on Twitter
And as you might expect, there are a few things that will make me NOT follow you:
- It’s not in English. I’m sure it’s interesting, I just can’t read it. I wish I could, really, but my Mandarin isn’t what it used to be.
- You have a cartoon avatar, a cutesy 1996 Internet name like ILoveHorses, and there’s no personal URL. You’ll notice that the people who seem to be (and I say “seem” because I can’t validate this) using twitter “best” (again, whatever that means), use their real names and let you know who they are. If between your name, your avatar, and your URL, I can’t find you at a conference…I’ll generally pass. Kthxbai!
- You follow 8,742 people and have 235 followers. You are a spammer. You’re doing exactly what email spammers do. You’re throwing out as many links as you can hoping to get a few nibbles. And there are a few people who follow you back. And all of a sudden, you think you’re popular. You’re not. You’re a spammer. Spam.
- You are a robot. Generally, if you’re a robot just posting web links, I’m not going to follow. Unless it’s something I’m really interested in. But I do wish you’d come out from your robot shell and start interacting with people as well. Thanks for the info, but come be human with us. Are you listening to me @sethgodin?!
Keep in mind that these are guidelines, not rules. I make exceptions all the time. And if I don’t follow you, could just be that I fell behind. I’m following 461 people as of this post. I think that might be a few too many, but seems to be working when I combine it with IM alerts for the people I really want to hear from.
What about you? Are you a “follow many” or “follow few” person? How do you decide?
13 responses so far ↓
1 Matt Browne // Apr 8, 2008 at 8:30 am
Good reminder post~!
I especially liked that you called out @sethgodin for his lack of real tweets. @lifehacker is guilty too!
@lifehacker and @sethgodin should have a bot-fest. Can someone tell them that is does nothing for your brand to simply republish your feed on twitter. That is why I have an RSS reader!!!
2 Jonathan T // Apr 8, 2008 at 8:35 am
@Matt: I totally agree, a lot of websites do this and think it’s smart. What they don’t figure out is that they are changing the natural order of things. In my case: If I subscribe to their twitter is because I already read the website. Putting links to their own sites defeats the purpose and makes me read or at least check as read when i get back to my rss reader.
i see twitter as a ways to express my opinion on current events without having to make a full blown blog post.
or using it as a daringfreball.net linked list.
3 Ryan Kuder // Apr 8, 2008 at 8:54 am
In fairness to Seth, he claims that the Seth-bot is not him. That’s right, there’s a ghost Seth out there somewhere. But even if it’s not him, you need to control your brand. He’s gotten some bad pub from me and others about that.
Re: Lifehacker. I don’t mind the feeds. I subscribe to them. But I don’t want the bots going and following me. I’ll find you. It’s all about the sequencing. Also, @ginatrapani tweets separately from Lifehacker if you’re looking for the human face.
4 Shelley // Apr 8, 2008 at 8:57 am
Ryan,
Thanks for this interesting and thought-provoking post. I’ve added it — with credit, of course — to a little Twitter NOOB FAQ page I put together for the folks I’m trying to coax into the Twitterverse
(http://butwait.pbwiki.com/Twitter-Newbies-FAQ)
Thanks again!
Shelley, Twittering - for real - as “butwait”
5 Sol Young // Apr 8, 2008 at 8:59 am
Great post Ryan - A lot of the rules you describe are similar to my rules for filtering who I follow in the flow. I enjoy following Russian, Spanish, and German Twitterers for language study… Mandarin, not yet
I don’t mind the @ people so long as they’re contributing intelligent ideas. A ton of foul language is usually grounds for passing someone up.
Cheers!
@sol
solyoung.com
6 Clint Lalonde // Apr 8, 2008 at 9:07 am
I might also follow people my friends follow. Odds are, if my friends or colleagues find value in what that person posts, then I might as well.
7 Kristen Forbriger // Apr 8, 2008 at 9:17 am
You forgot to add #5 - You make me a really sweet avatar!
Kidding, this is a great summary, and good for a Twitter n00b to read if they want to acquire followers. I would add “you link to a website/blog” as another criteria, but can be replaced with a strong bio in 160.
8 Stop Twitter Spam » Ryan Kuder - How Do I Follow? Let Me Count the Ways // Apr 8, 2008 at 9:27 am
[…] Ryan Kuder - How Do I Follow? Let Me Count the Ways (04/08/08) This entry was written by admin and posted on April 8, 2008 at 9:27 am and filed under […]
9 vinnie // Apr 8, 2008 at 10:42 am
If you look interesting to me I’ll follow you.
If you follow me and you’re not a bot/feed script I’ll follow you back.
Follow policies and all this talk about the logistics of following is just stupid to me. It means you’re taking twitter too seriously and should probably take a day off
10 Lee Kolbert // Apr 8, 2008 at 11:50 am
Thanks for the response Ryan. I think it’s funny to note, that the idea for this blog post was generated by a tweet by Teachakidd (me) who follows you because she thinks you are interesting, yet you do not follow her back. Ouch! I still think you are interesting and will continue to follow you and read your posts.
11 Jeremiah Owyang // Apr 8, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Thanks for including me, I’m not sure how influential I am, but interesting sure fits (whether that be good or bad)
Thanks!
12 Warren Whitlock // Apr 8, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Wonderful post. I’m going to refer my audience to it.
I’d caution the use of the S word. Seems that most define it as anything they don’t want to see. The underlying advice was spot on, but I think that there are many with that ratio that I wouldn’t label.
I follow dozens more each day. I want to read them. The can follow me if they want. And I certainly don’t want to try to force people to follow.
13 Ryan Kuder // Apr 8, 2008 at 2:30 pm
@vinnie
I think the value comes from what people just joining twitter can learn on how to participate from the community. Obviously there’s no “system” that any of us follow and most of us can boil it down to the two things you laid out. But hopefully it’s helpful to know how people judge “interestingness”. Are there things you look for when you decide if someone is interesting? Is it what they talk about? Who they talk to? The image they picked?
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